A Friend, A Balm
by MistakenMagic
Summary: "No one else seemed to have noticed that Loki bruised far more easily than his brother." One-shot set during the close of Avengers Assemble. Implied Loki/Natasha.


**A/N: Hey guys, so I lasted a grand total of eighteen days before returning to Avengers fanfiction – I just couldn't keep away! This one-shot is AU to my longer fic, 'How the Mighty Have Fallen', but if readers want to see it as a prequel to the story I have no problem with that. Writing this was a wonderful afternoon of escapism from uni work, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!**

* * *

"_After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would co-operate."_

* * *

This was not the first time Natasha Romanoff had found herself in the infirmary at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, and she was sure it wouldn't be the last. Sitting on the bed, with her legs dangling over the side and her feet hovering above the floor, she felt like a small child who had been left on a high countertop by busy parents.

She held a small ice-pack to her swollen lip and let Cath, her medic, fuss over the cut on her forehead. Closing her eyes against the harsh, sterile light, the stinging smell of disinfectant entered her nostrils and refused to let her thoughts wander onto more pleasant things. In her mind Manhattan was on fire and she could still hear the screams in her ears – the screams of terrified, fleeing civilians, mingled with the unearthly shrieks of the Chitauri soldiers whose battle cries sounded like serrated metal being scraped on glass. But the soft, low chuckle of Captain America saved her from those nightmarish visions.

Opening her eyes, Natasha managed a smile. Steve Rogers was lying on the bed behind hers. A blast from a Chitauri gun had left a nasty wound slicing across his abdomen, but he seemed to be quite enjoying his first stay in the infirmary. Just you wait until it's your thirty-second visit, Cap, Natasha thought with a sigh, then maybe you won't be so happy. It's the joy of being so very mortal; I've been in here so many times they should give me a loyalty card.

Yet she knew she shouldn't complain; she and Steve had got off lightly. As soon as the battle was over and Loki had been captured, Clint had been carted off to a three-hour counselling session. This compulsory counselling was company policy... and one of the biggest in-jokes amongst agents. It was well-known that the counsellors and psychiatrists employed by S.H.I.E.L.D. were far more mentally unstable than their patients. Natasha pictured Clint sitting in a dimmed room, listening to whale music and Buddhist chants and tried not to smile. Yes, she could have it far worse.

Cath had just finished cleaning and dressing the cut on her forehead when Natasha caught snatches of conversation coming from outside the infirmary doors:

"_... He's in a bad way... They say it's on Fury's orders..."_

Natasha looked up to see Agent Ryan Hedley talking to the agent standing guard by the doors. Ryan's brown eyes were round and wide, and the junior agent was fidgeting, distractedly, with the collar of his jacket.

"And that's you done," Cath said warmly, dragging Natasha's attentions back inside the infirmary.

"Thanks, Cath," Natasha murmured, depositing her ice-pack into the metal tray at her side. She lowered herself onto the floor and straightened up. "I'll see you for the paperwork, Cap," she said, turning to Steve with a wry smile.

The captain grinned and raised a hand in farewell, before disappearing behind the crowd of medics - the crowd of mostly _female_ medics – who clearly weren't all needed to treat one abdominal laceration.

Natasha slipped through the infirmary doors to find Ryan still talking hastily to the posted agent, sounding slightly breathless. He stopped as soon as she appeared and moved back with a twitch; she knew he was resisting the urge to click his boots together and salute - a strange habit she'd finally managed to make him give up.

"Everything OK, Agent Hedley?" Natasha asked carefully, scrutinising Ryan's pale face, well aware that everything wasn't OK.

"Yes, ma'am," came Ryan's practiced reply.

Natasha sighed. She'd told Ryan a million times not to call her that; she could only be about three or four years older than him and she hated feeling like a strict schoolmistress... or worse than that, Agent Hill.

"You know I'm not buying that, Ryan," Natasha said, raising an eyebrow. "Walk with me?" She gestured down the corridor, and before Ryan had time to murmur a 'yes, ma'am' she set off walking.

She had started calling Ryan by his first name some months ago in an effort to remove his 'ma'am' tick and make him feel more at ease with her, but she was yet to see any positive results. With his long, spindly legs, Ryan caught up with her easily and dropped into step beside her. At six foot, three inches, he towered over Natasha and his mop of chocolate brown curls bounced as he walked... Natasha had not been impressed with the photo she'd found tacked to the inside of her locker; someone had photo-shopped Ryan's face onto her body and coloured her bright red hair to match Ryan's brown. His beanpole physique and studious nature made Ryan an easy target with other agents – S.H.I.E.L.D. could be no better than high school sometimes – but no one denied the fact that Ryan was a genius. The agency had snatched him up before he'd even removed the cap and gown from his Harvard graduation.

They walked in silence down the corridor, their boots echoing in a cluttered harmony on the metal-grated floor. When they reached a deserted cross-roads Natasha rounded on Ryan and folded her arms across her chest. "OK. What's happened?"

Ryan looked nervously up and down the corridor, before answering quietly: "It's Loki... They've got him down in the basement... I don't –"

"Loki?" Natasha cut across him in surprise; she hadn't expected that. "He's supposed to be in his holding cell on Level Four."

"I know," Ryan replied meekly. "But he was being treated by the medics and now Evans and Carter have taken him to..."

Natasha didn't wait for Ryan to finish; she spun around and marched towards the nearest elevator. "Evans and Carter?" she asked briskly, stabbing the button for the basement floor on the panel to her left.

"Yes, ma'am," Ryan answered, joining her in the elevator just before the doors closed and it lurched downwards.

Why is it always those two? Natasha thought with an inward groan. Evans and Carter; they sounded like a brand... And their product would be incompetence. Agent Adam Evans and Agent Sam Carter looked and acted like a pair of hired goons, straight out of a gangster film. Why on earth Director Fury thought it was a good idea to give them free access to guns was beyond Natasha's understanding. And now she was scared... No, not scared, _concerned_...

Ryan's eyes widened when Natasha pulled her gun from its holster on her hip and checked the safety, but after a few moments he followed suit. With an eerie chime they arrived in the basement and Natasha's ears were filled with the sound of rushing water and a few loud laughs reverberating around tiled walls; she knew where Evans and Carter were. With Ryan following behind her, Natasha made a sharp right and burst through the doors of the locker room.

Evans and Carter turned to meet her and jumped together, trying to block something from her view. Evans was holding a grimy, dark green hose pipe behind his back which continued to gush water onto the tiled floor. The room felt bitterly cold. Natasha and Ryan looked down to see water lapping at their boots.

"What are you doing down here?" Natasha asked sharply, holding her gun steady at her side, her finger curling around the trigger.

"Director Fury's orders," Carter replied, sounding rather smug as he said it.

A faint moan rose up from behind the two agents and before they could stop her, Natasha pushed past them.

"Oh God!" she gasped, almost dropping her gun into the pool of water.

Loki was lying on the floor in front of her, naked, soaking wet, and shivering. His long, pale limbs, almost as white as the tiles, were tucked tightly around him in a protective foetal position and his face was hidden by his knees. His jet black hair was limp and plastered to his face and shoulders.

Natasha turned slowly back to Evans and Carter. "You can't just drag a high security prisoner down here without restraints and carry out your own justice!" she said through gritted teeth.

"Fury told us to clean him up," Evans shrugged, seemingly unphased, as if he was being scolded for not clearing away his plate at the dinner table.

"You should hear the sounds he's been making, Romanoff," Carter said gleefully, and grabbed the hose from Evans, turning the water-jet back onto Loki.

As the blast of freezing water hit him, the god let out the most pathetic whimper Natasha had ever heard; like a small animal trapped in a snare. He tried in vain to rock out of the line of fire.

"Stop it!" Natasha ordered, her voice rising.

Carter lowered the hose and he and Evans exchanged curious glances.

"Don't you want a go, Natasha?" Evans asked darkly. "You've got more cause than any of us to hate this bastard."

Carter held the hose out to her. Natasha knew exactly what they meant, and her eyes returned to the cowering, submissive form of Loki... Was this the same god who had slammed his fist against the glass by her head and pushed his face as close to hers as possible, spitting out his threats...? The one who had stolen Clint from her and played with his mind like it was a new toy, ready to toss him away as soon as he got bored...? Now this god had been reduced to nothing more than a shaking, defenceless child.

She had every reason to, but Natasha wouldn't touch the hose. Because she recognised this room. She had been here before... in Loki's place. The basement locker room had only served one purpose for years: it was a place to torment newly-acquired prisoners. When Clint had first brought her in, sparing her life, Natasha had been bundled down here, bound and stripped, thrown into the corner of the room and blasted with icy water from every angle. She still remembered the cheers, the guffaws, the cold, cold water... But Clint had come to find her. Throwing the agents aside and breaking the nose of one, he had wrapped her in a towel and carried her to his room. The rest, as they say, was history.

Natasha studied Loki again; the god had tilted his head away from his knees and for the first time she saw his eyes – the green was glazed over, and although they came to rest on her for a second, they rolled away again, lolling in their sockets. She realised how odd it was that the God of Lies appeared to have been outwitted by this dopey pair; she knew Loki would not have come quietly. "What's wrong with him?" she asked, turning her gaze back onto Evans and Carter.

She expected a smartass reply, but Evans answered honestly: "The medics drugged him up to stop him talking. He's totally out of it."

"But he still squeals like a little piglet," Carter grinned, his freckled, boyish face that of a ninth grade bully, and turned the hose back on Loki.

"Enough!" Natasha cried. "Turn it off... NOW!"

Evans and Carter looked at each other but didn't move. With a growl Natasha pushed past them again, splashing water onto her pants with every step, and went to the metal tap jutting out of the wall behind them. She twisted it until the hose was dry.

"The two of you better get out of my sight right now or, so help me God, I will have you sorting paperclips in our Portland branch until you retire!" Natasha spat, her chest heaving.

Fortunately, Evans and Carter didn't need telling twice and they shuffled out of the locker room, muttering to each other.

When she heard the elevator doors close, Natasha turned to Ryan, who had been silent for the whole episode. "Sorry about that," she murmured, returning her gun to its holster; Loki clearly wasn't going to prove a danger to them, and now Evans and Carter were gone she wasn't tempted to shoot anyone.

"No need to apologise, ma'am," Ryan said quietly, mirroring her movements and stowing away his gun. His uncertain expression clearly said: what do we do now?

"OK, if you could go and guard the door?" Natasha said, her hands jumping to her hips as she surveyed the room. "Make sure no one comes anywhere near – especially Thor. I don't want him to see this."

Ryan gave her a firm nod that shouted 'yes ma'am' louder than the words ever could and disappeared through the locker room doors, leaving Natasha alone with Loki. She moved slowly and with caution over to him and crouched down at his side. She didn't know what made her do it, but she reached out and put a gentle hand on Loki's shoulder. The god's eyes suddenly locked on her with a burning, accusatory look, making her heart skip a beat, but then they slid back out of focus.

Natasha withdrew her hand. Loki's white skin had trembled beneath her fingertips and for the first time she took in the full extent of his injuries. His body was covered in cuts and the smooth, tense muscles of his arms and legs bore ominous bruises that bloomed purple at their centres. No one else seemed to have noticed that Loki bruised far more easily than his brother. Thor had survived the fray virtually unscathed, but after the battle when they'd found Loki in Stark Tower the younger god had moved delicately and with difficulty. He had winced as they carried him away and no one had thought to check if any of his bones were cracked or broken.

But Natasha had noticed, had wondered. When Thor returned Loki to their jet after slamming him into a cliff, she had seen the way Loki's hand jumped to his back, how he had walked stiffly, his eyes watery with pain. Was she actually feeling sorry for the God of Lies? Although the thought troubled her, it was hard not to pity him in this rather tragic state. Focusing herself, Natasha straightened up and detached the showerhead from the wall behind them. Twisting the dial, she got the water to a lukewarm temperature; she didn't want to burn him after he'd been doused with freezing water.

With the tenderness of a mother bathing her child, Natasha carefully ran the water over Loki, taking extra care with his bruised limbs. Loki wriggled a little under her touch and his breathing became heavy, but he didn't alter his guarded position. She was quite glad of that; she was sure it had amused, or perhaps wounded, the egos of Evans and Carter to compare certain parts of their anatomy to a Norse god's, but she told herself she wasn't interested in what lay between Loki's legs.

Natasha carefully ran the water over Loki's hair and pulled the soaking, black strands from his face. He let out a low hiss, his eyes once again settling on her with that unnervingly lucid look, but he didn't protest and his gaze soon wandered. When she was satisfied, Natasha returned the showerhead to the wall. "Ryan?" she called towards the doors.

Ryan instantly appeared in the locker room, looking questioningly from Natasha to Loki.

"Would you mind, er, getting him dry and putting him in a bathrobe?" Natasha asked, praying she wouldn't have to spell anything out in order to give Loki some dignity.

"Yes, ma–" Natasha glared at him. "Agent Romanoff."

Ah, maybe we're finally getting somewhere, Natasha thought as she handed Ryan a thick, white towel. The locker room still stocked towels and plush bathrobes, emblazoned with the S.H.I.E.L.D. crest; this was either to keep up appearances or to offer prisoners some comfort after their ordeal. In this case it was the latter. Natasha retreated through the doors and stood outside with her arms folded. She looked towards the elevator and wondered how she could get Loki to the infirmary without running into Fury, Thor, or Agent Hill. She could make herself inconspicuous enough – almost invisible in fact – but hiding two men well over six foot would be a challenge. And she fully intended to take Loki to the infirmary and not straight back to his holding cell. She didn't want Evans or Carter or their cronies to be able to get hold of him again, and she knew the medical staff well enough to trust them – after all, she saw some of them more than she saw her closer acquaintances.

Suddenly the doors unexpectedly swung open and Ryan appeared, supporting Loki now wrapped in a white bathrobe, the god's arm around his shoulders. I guess the ventilation shafts are out of the question, Natasha thought, peering up at the towering mass that was Ryan and Loki combined.

"Excellent job, Ryan," she said, moving towards the elevator. Ryan beamed and followed her slowly.

Loki's head lolled onto his shoulder, but he did appear to be taking steps. His eyes kept darting towards Natasha, looking disturbingly alert, but they were always fleeting glances. The three of them piled into the elevator and returned to the second floor. Natasha led the way down a deserted corridor at the back of the building and they entered the infirmary through the side doors. Steve's bed was empty, as was the ward. Without a word, Ryan helped Loki into the nearest bed. Cath and two other medics appeared from the office and froze, their eyes wide.

"I don't know who treated him before," Natasha began, speaking slowly and with an edge to her voice. "But you're not to give him any more sedatives and he is to be treated with the same decency as any other patient. Understood?"

The medics nodded just as Natasha's earpiece crackled. "Agent Romanoff, report to Conference Room A1 for debriefing," came Agent Hill's voice.

Natasha looked to Ryan. "Agent Hedley is in charge. You answer to him. Is this clear?"

The medics nodded again. Natasha gave Ryan a small smile, then her eyes came to rest on the still form of Loki; with his eyes now firmly closed, the god couldn't return her gaze. Satisfied, but with a sickly feeling in her stomach she couldn't place, Natasha turned on her heel and disappeared back through the side doors of the infirmary.

* * *

The sun was hot and bright in Central Park. Clint was attesting to chivalry's demise and refusing to let Natasha borrow his sunglasses. The Avengers had assembled to see off Thor and Loki, who were returning to Asgard, and to say goodbye to each other as they all went their separate ways.

By some miracle, Ryan had managed to get Loki back to his holding cell without any other Avenger, including Thor, discovering the truth about the episode in the basement. Natasha was sure Evans and Carter had been circulating all sorts of rumours amongst the junior agents, but luckily Clint was yet to catch wind of any of it. Ever since that incident Natasha had been plagued by dreams about Loki and the locker room. Sometimes she saw more than she wanted to – or at least that's what she told herself. She hadn't looked Loki in the eye since... But she often wondered whether he remembered any of it. Did he know she had come to him, helped him... washed him?

Now, in the park, with everyone watching, Natasha finally met Loki's gaze, just as he reached for the Tesseract. In the blue flash before Loki and Thor disappeared, Loki's bright green eyes found hers and with one look she had her answer... He remembered everything.


End file.
